Emily Saunders

Herts Jazz Festival

Recent Comments

Subscribe

A very quiet disclaimer

LondonJazz is a not-for profit venture, but may occasionally take on work as a paid publicist and/or sell advertising packages. Where a piece published after 26th October 2012 appears which is linked to this activity, the text will be followed by the following symbol: (pp)

John McLaughlin’s arrival on stage in the Barbican Hall was greeted by some audience
members with a brief standing ovation, and there was, throughout this
exhilarating concert, a feeling that the faithful had gathered to mark the
return of a favourite son. He himself, introducing keyboardist/drummer
Gary Husband, referred to their shared Yorkshire roots by lapsing
into his original North Country accent, and at one point he paid tribute
to UK fans by pointing out that it was their initial and continuing
support that had enabled him to carve out his illustrious career in music.

Now 70, but looking sleek and elegant as ever, McLaughlin may have been in
a mellow mood, but his music is as powerful and hard-hitting as it ever
was, and in the multi-talented Husband, bassist Etienne M’Bappe and
drummer Ranjot Barot he has found the perfect band to showcase it.
They began with the opening number from their recent album Now Here
This, ‘Trancefusion’, a typical McLaughlin theme full of
blistering runs punctuated by jagged, choppy chords riding on a tumultuous
mix of tumbling drums, punchy bass and chattering keyboards.

Without a break, they eased into a bluesy number with a big backbeat, the
irresistibly catchy ‘Little Miss Valley’ from the early-1990s Free
Spirits repertoire, and thereafter the quartet continued in this vein,
promiscuously mixing something old (‘Hijacked’ from 1992’s Qué
Alegría) and something new (‘Call and Answer’, a feature for
Husband’s drums and keyboards) with something borrowed (Pharoah Sanders’s
sumptuously spiritual ballad ‘The Light at the Edge of the World’)
and something blue. Although the lion’s share of the soloing was
inevitably allotted to McLaughlin’s uniquely fluent, alternately raw and
sweet-toned guitar, M’Bappe shone in his solo spots, mysteriously
conjuring deft but funky improvisations from gloved hands, and both the
exuberant but crisp Barot and the supremely musicianly Husband played
impeccably throughout. By the time McLaughlin eased into his short, but
intensely heartfelt encore, Coltrane’s ‘A Love Supreme’, he had,
without resorting to pushing too many nostalgia buttons, undoubtedly
pulled off that trickiest of feats, staging a triumphant homecoming.

Arun Ghosh and the Twin TenorsPhoto Credit: Roger Thomas

In all the (entirely justifiable) excitement wrapped up in this
superb display by a world-class jazz legend, it would be easy to
overlook the part played, in raising the crowd’s energy level at the
start of proceedings, by clarinettist Arun Ghosh. His is a
relatively straightforward musical formula: he takes sinuous South
Asian themes, sets them to a heavy jazz-funk beat (provided by
bassist Neil Charles and drummer Rastko Rasic) and then
basically plays the hell out of them with the help of the vigorous
but skilled tenor players Idris Rahman and Wayne
Francis. It can be a daunting task opening for a highly
anticipated act of such stature, but Ghosh performed it with such
great aplomb (and modest dignity) that the strict telling-off given
to one critic (as he took his seat for McLaughlin, having been absent
for the introductory act) by another – “You’ve just missed one of the
best festival opening acts I’ve ever seen” – was entirely
understandable.

1 comment:

Yes, superb musicians playing with fantastic dexterity. But "as powerful and hard hitting as it ever was"? I don't think so. The virtuosity remains but the fire has gone out, what is left is the empty shell. Rather sad to be thinking all the time "it would be really great to see the original Mahavishnu Orchestra". Still, all those great albums remain. If you want to see an artist whose music is still alive when he's 70, go and see John Cale. Dr Love